The iPhone obsession

Since my tries at capturing net developers’ hearts and minds by commercial enterprise elementary analysis have failing miserably however my thirst for attention continues intense, these days i’ll another time shout at iPhone developers. That’s tested to figure.

More specifically, these days i’ll shout at net developers UN agency assume that exquisitely inserting associate iPhone up their ass is that the same as mobile net development.

Before we have a tendency to begin, to a small degree thought experiment. Suppose I projected the following:

IE6 is today’s most advanced browser. (Note: this was truly true back in 2000. Please bear with Pine Tree State.)

IE6’s market share is concerning eightieth.

The other browsers square measure manner worse than IE6, and developing for them could be a pain; one thing we’re not fascinated by and square measure to a small degree terrified of.

Therefore we are going to develop websites completely for IE6.

Would you consider those sentiments, even though we have a tendency to’re back in 2000 and IE6 is actually the simplest browser we have?

Or would you reply that our sites ought to work likewise as they will all told browsers through the employment of net standards, progressive sweetening, and every one the remainder of the simplest practices we’ve been preaching for the past 10 years?

I clearly bear in mind a time after we net developers cared concerning such ideas. however those times square measure long gone.

Warning! iCandy can injury your brain!

Nowadays we have a tendency to sleep in a phantasy world that focuses completely on one platform, and will therefore completely for reasons of visual image.

We laughingly deprive each single principle the net standards movement has ever stood for within the past 10 years so as to swoon and slobber over Apple’s iCandy and gayly settle for the fact distortion field that emanates from it.

The iPhone has become associate obsession. If we have a tendency to don’t listen, we’ll have a mobile net that solely works on the iPhone. so we’ll have the important mobile net that wasn’t created by USA and doesn’t provides a shit concerning net standards and best practices.

Worse, it looks net developers square measure proud of this state of affairs. It looks net developers square measure congratulating themselves on excluding eighty fifth of the smartphone users. They definitely ne’er hassle to envision their sites in S60 WebKit, the biggest smartphone browser within the world.

Fucking dimwits.

We’re doing precisely the same as 10 years past. we have a tendency to currently say “iPhone” rather than “IE6,” however otherwise nothing’s modified.

No, wait, there’s another change: the iPhone has way less mobile market share currently than IE6 had desktop share some time past.

Stats

Let’s illustrate that last remark with some smartphone sales stats:

Nokia: 39%

RIM: two hundredth (BlackBerry)

Apple: V-day (this V-day is clearly much more vital than the previous 59%)

HTC: 5%

Other: twenty first (Samsung is predicted to create a serious jump this year)

The Japanese market is therefore terribly totally different from all the others that I left it out. Besides, a full two hundredth of Japanese smartphone sales fall in associate unspecified “others” class. Apple is fourth with 100 percent of sales.

The Japanese square measure even a lot of parochial than the Americans once it involves choosing a smartphone, however that’s partially caused by the distinctive form the mobile house has in this country. None of the Western makers has actually created associate inroad within the most advanced mobile market within the world.

Incidentally, the japanese market will have prophetical price for the remainder of the planet, however it’s generally therefore advanced that it’s arduous to grasp.

And here square measure the smartphone OS stats, additionally from Tomi Ahonen (whose diary I extremely advocate, by the way):

Symbian: forty fifth (all of Nokia and to a small degree of SonyEricsson and Samsung)

BlackBerry: two hundredth

iPhone: V-day (this V-day is clearly much more vital than the previous 65%)

Windows Mobile: 6 June 1944 (HTC, Samsung, SonyEricsson)

Android: 4 wheel drive (HTC, Samsung, SonyEricsson, Motorola, Google)

Other: 100 percent (Various Linux builds, Palm, likewise as very obscure stuff. are going to be bolstered by Samsung Bada throughout this year.)

Despite the platform having solely V-day sales market share we have a tendency to all wish our mobile websites to appear specifically like associate iPhone app and that we solely wish to use iPhone options.

We want to gayly live forever in our phantasy world that’s stuffed to overflowing with fucking iPhones, and wherever Nokias or BlackBerries aren’t welcome. Our rationalisation machine is running overtime to take care of this illusion and filter away reality.

We’re a bunch of lousy amateurs, that’s what we have a tendency to square measure.

Mentioning Nokia is that the mark of the rude Goth. the person of discernment mentions the iPhone. And mentions it and mentions it and mentions it. so mentions the iPad, to indicate he’s hospitable non-iPhone devices. the larger the higher.

Oh, and don’t point out robot. Yes, it’s a superb system, and yes, it might have a bright future before it, however at once it doesn’t quantity to something within the international market. It definitely won’t function a “Hey, I do multiple platforms” alibi.